Data source: Annual CO₂ emissions (Our World in Data)

Tools used: Matplotib

Yesterday, I posted a visualization showing a stacked areachart with CO2 emissions over time. I got a lot of great feedback in the comments and decided to create two new versions.

The changes are:

  • Remove the y-axis and add percentages instead
  • Don't center the chart around the 50% mark

Let me know which one you like the best! 🙂

Posted by oscarleo0

7 comments

  1. I like how you did the vertical stack two ways as its sometimes easier to appreciate/compare one way or the other. Another interesting piece that could be a separate graph or possibly a table with this is the recent trend, something like the last 5 or 10 years rate of change, as its hard to see with 125 years of history.

    This is probably a rant but every post like this there are always people who push:

    1) This isn’t fair to China because…. Seriously guys give it a rest, yes they have some of the largest green initiatives out there, but they’re also burning enormous amounts of coal and continuing to expand that too. The numbers are what they are.

    2) This doesn’t show how the US dominated CO2 output for decades because…. The US and Europe industrialized 1st so yea that happened, and Europe was individual nations which could be split up here but would make this impossible to read. You’re welcome to make your own graph if you don’t like it. Again, the numbers are what they are.

  2. I like the graph and style – how come the Soviet Union has no influnce in the 1950s-70s. I cannot imagine that their emission where negligible and less than today’s Russia.

  3. Here’s another chart that shows historical CO2 levels for the last 800,000 years. The influence of the Industrial Age on emissions is unmistakable.

  4. Lovely presentation! What’s the matplotlib function to make this type of plot?

    I prefer the one with the solid x-axis. Easier to estimate the change in absolute emissions, which is important. I’d prefer the absolute numbers on the y axis and the % for the larger polluters inside the bars themselves.This version would be publication quality and the type of thing you’d see in a top journal eg one of the Nature review journals. Excellent work – one of the best I’ve seen in this sub!

    Edit: Looking again, perhaps your version is nicer as you get the decadal numbers. I’d need to see both!

  5. I like both, but why is South Africa so far away from Africa?

  6. Would be very nice to have the cumulative Co² emission

  7. I know i’m probably in the minority here but it’s rare that i find a stacked area chart to be better than an overlapping line chart (with a “total” line added).

    Enlighten my dumbass, what’s the advantage of stacked area?

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